


Post-Apocalypse Bonding

by queerlyobscure (softestpunk)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Chuck Lives, Gen, Other, pre-pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:54:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestpunk/pseuds/queerlyobscure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's pure accident that Raleigh is in the room when Chuck wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Post-Apocalypse Bonding

**Author's Note:**

> Still all [Sam's](http://samschooler.tumblr.com/) fault.

It's pure accident that Raleigh is in the room when Chuck wakes up. An accident he'd honestly prefer hadn't happened, because anyone but him would've been a better person for Chuck to wake up _to_ , after he'd effectively risen from the dead.

When Chuck's first reaction is to try to sit up, Raleigh's is, naturally enough, to hold him down. It's like a neat summary of their whole relationship up to this point. While Raleigh has had time to soften towards the younger man and come to respect him for his courage and ability, Chuck has been out for a week and probably mostly remembers the part where he almost died.

"You're hurt," Raleigh explains uselessly. Chuck stops trying to sit up and instead starts to stretch, stopping with a whimper when he realises that he is, in fact, hurt. He looks at Raleigh like this is his doing, just by having said it, and then yawns.

"Only a flesh wound," he murmurs tiredly. He looks at Raleigh for a couple of seconds as though he expects something of him. Raleigh clearly fails to provide, and Chuck's face falls--just a little--when he realises he's not going to get the response he was looking for.

"I'll get your dad. He just went to sleep a little."

"Don't wake him." Chuck raises his hand and waves it to stop him. It's a weak gesture, but Raleigh is inclined to obey it all the same. "'m not goin' anywhere."

Raleigh nods, and finds he's completely run out of things that seem even remotely appropriate to say. He knew Chuck was young from the first time he met him, but it was a different kind of youth. Before, he'd been all energy and impulsiveness, potentially good qualities but uncontrolled, not wholly unlike a wild animal. Now, bruised and battered, covered in just a hospital gown and thin sheets, he seems vulnerable.

It's not impossible for Raleigh to remember being Chuck's age, or to imagine how terrifying this is for him. Which is why he also doesn't attempt to leave just yet.

"Did we win?" Chuck asks after the silence stretches well into awkwardness and back out of it again.

"Yeah." Raleigh can't help smiling at that. "We won. Breach is closed."

Chuck breathes out slowly in lieu of giving a verbal response. He turns his head away from Raleigh, out towards the rest of the empty makeshift infirmary. "Early retirement for us, then. Think I'd make it in construction?"

"It's nowhere near as glamorous as Jaeger piloting." Raleigh replies with laughter in his voice that he can't quite help. Every time he's reminded that they're not at war any more, it's like a weight lifts off his soul.

Chuck only snorts and then falls silent again. They both know that only one pod surfaced, so he doesn't ask, and Raleigh doesn't bring it up.

Herc comes back after half an hour or so and Raleigh takes it as his cue to leave. He looks back at Chuck as he does, and gets a wave and a wink for his trouble. It's an olive branch and he accepts it as such with a nod, aware that now there's only a few handfuls of people who know what facing down the apocalypse up close was like, and it'd be worth sticking together with all of them.


End file.
